Program Description

The Visual Art Department at Germantown Academy is committed to providing a comprehensive education in the arts within the context of a liberal arts education. Our foundation and advanced curriculum is a well-rounded and versatile approach to the study and application of art. It is designed to provide a creatively stimulating education in an open environment of studio classes. Experimentation and innovation, collaboration and social responsibility are themes built into the curriculum. While these courses extend excellent opportunities for the general study of art and life-long arts advocacy, they are also designed to cultivate serious talents in the visual arts. Many of our students have gone on to prominent careers in commercial, fine, and applied arts.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Senior Spotlight: F Koons


The Ten


Netflix and Chill

Beach fam
Chelsea F.C.
Spotify
FIFA
Hoodies
Shameless
How I Met Your mother
Morning car ride jams
Mexican food



Senior Spotlight: Ace MacDonald





The Ten

Death of a Bachelor - Panic! At the Disco
Short Skirt Long Jacket - Cake
Never There - Cake
One Week - Barenaked Ladies
Bending Backwards - Arden Kind
Hurt - Johnny Cash
Smooth - Santana
Don't Threaten Me With a Good Time - Panic!
Kings of Summer - ayokay
The Same Boy You've Always Known - The White Stripes




Thursday, December 15, 2016

Senior Spotlight: D Niemynski




The Ten 

SoundCloud
Sleeping in
Hoodies
Old sitcoms
Need for Speed
Crosswords
Home cooked meals
YouTube
Piano
Words with friends



Sunday, December 11, 2016

Self Portrait Drawings




Upper school students in painting and drawing used color studies inspired by Soutine or Thibeaut to make self portraits. As a part of this phased work in self-portraiture, students also used monotypes investigate feelings of "otherness." Looking at the work of Berkley Hendricks and thinking about some of the ideas he was pondering (civil rights, women's rights, art history), students were asked whether there are still situations where one can be made to feel like they don't belong based on something they can not change.






Thursday, December 1, 2016

Kandinsky Art and Design Thinking


5th grade students learned about Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.  Kandinsky connected music and emotion to painting and is considered by many the founder of abstract art.  Inspired by the classical music of Scriabin and Schoenberg, students created their own Kandinsky-like paintings.  Next, the 5th graders ventured outside to create a Kandinsky-inspired mural.   During the following class, students were tasked with a design challenge to help them make deeper connections to Kandisnky.   They were asked to work collaboratively to design and sketch a product or mechanism that would help Kandinsky at some point in his life.  Students connected their experiences to Kandinsky’s and they practiced empathetic inquiry.  Our current endeavor in the design process is creating digitally rendered 3D models of the concepts on iPads.  Using Autodesk’s 123D design App, students are transforming geometric shapes into the structure of their prototypes.  Final details and iterations occur within their development as students educate and evaluate each other throughout the innovation process. This kind of project based learning gives students an opportunity to make deeper connections to artists and processes.  It invites curiosity and creativity and encompasses the direction of 21st century education by engaging students fully, while practicing the elements of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics or STEAM.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Senior Spotlight: J Sheridan



The Ten

Car rides with good music and the windows down
Good people
Sushi
Big sweatshirts
Playing in rain
Netflix binge watching
Concerts
Iced coffee
Onesies
Beach squad